WordPress is a free system you can use to create your websites. Just because it is free does not mean it will be easy. Both are extremely time consuming to learn to use, and many DIYers start their page and then leave it up on the Web reading “Hello World.” This is the default page for the first page of any WordPress site. If you do not have a lot of time or an undying curiosity to learn how to create websites, you should not tackle this on your own.
There are two versions of WordPress. One ends in .com and the other in .org.
The first version is the .com. On this site, you will be given free space, and your website will begin with wordpress.com/yoursite. This does not look very professional, so WordPress offers you the chance to have your own company’s URL. It would lose the WordPress.com and just read yoursite.com. But there is a catch. Nothing worth having is free, right? WordPress charges you about $100 per year to give you your own company name on their free site.
The second is the .org version and has to be downloaded and manipulated on your computer and then uploaded to your webspace wherever you already are being hosted. Once you upload it to your host site, you can begin using it. There are all sorts of themes and widgets you can use to make your site look fancy; the most commonly seen are the freebies, so you’ll need to purchase yours if you want to be original. This is where they get you. You think it’s free, but you end up buying add-ons left and right. This can get expensive.
Although there are some downfalls, there are definitely some benefits to using WordPress the most important being that it helps you make your site optimized for search engines. This is called SEO or search engine optimization. At Xizzee, we use WordPress when our customers want SEO applied and when they want to be able to edit their own pages. WordPress allows us to create the site and then give editing rights to you when the site is complete.
The second con is that there are thousands of themes to choose from, so customers have to spend hours looking through the themes to choose on. Once chosen, the theme has to be learned. Each theme is created by an individual who writes up documentation for how to use his/her theme. This, too, is time consuming. The final con is that the themes are often not flexible for customization, so what you see is what you get.
If you decide to make your website on your own, there are WordPress forums for you to teach yourself and seek help when you get stuck. If you don’t have the time or the endurance to go through this, you might want to look for a website design company like Xizzee that can help you through the process.